“motherhood changes your whole identity”
Jody Sperling
Interviewed on November 11th, 2022
by Anabella Lenzu
Anabella: Thank you so much Jody for making the time to talk about your life being a mother and an artist. My first question is how do you do it all: art and motherhood?
Jody: Evie is 11 years old. It’s funny because before you decide to have a kid you know when you are pregnant or the kid is a baby that it’s going to be a big factor in your life. Even though she’s 11, she’s still a lot of work and even though I only have one kid, she’s still a handful. e make it by “hook or by crook” basically. It’s a lot of improvisation, she’s at the age now that she and her friends the neighborhood walk to and from school together. So that’s a big advance. The pandemic has shifted so it's less restricted, so schools are open. So that’s a huge opening in life. We definitely get by with a lot of support from our family. . . . She’s a super creative person!
Anabella: How would you define what it is to be a “good mother” and how would you define what it is to be a “good artist”?
Jody: Great question. I have a wonderful mother. She is a role model to me, she is a strong, independent woman. She was a single mom and always had a career. She traveled a lot, had two children, and was a professor at NYU. She also had a private practice in psychology and went to conferences. She went all around the world and would bring me little trinkets and I’d stay with my father or my grandparents. It was the 70’s, arents weren't so minutely involved and didn’t obsess over every little decision like they do now. She gave me so much freedom in my life at a young age. She gave me a really strong feminist role model and also activist beliefs. I remember us going to marches and rallies as a kid.
My parenting style is different from hers, because we’re living in a different age and we’re more involved in kids’ daily lives and decisions; micromanaging to an extent. I do really want to give my daughter a lot of freedom to pursue her own interests. To let her develop some agency in her own life. Also to provide a role model of someone pursuing what’s meaningful and impactful to them in the world.
A proud moment for me, in 2014 when Evie was 2, I had an invitation to go to the Arctic to participate as an artist on a polar science mission. I had not anticipated this. I was doing research on a project and I interviewed with a scientist. Then the scientist who was leading this expedition invited me to join. My immediate response was that there was no way I could go because my daughter is only two and that would require being away for 6 weeks and that’s a long time. How could I ask my partner to take care of our child for that long? Then I thought it over and ended up working it out so that I could attend. I was away from her for some time, which was difficult, but it was also a really incredible experience and provided me with a lot of opportunities afterwards. It was also the first time since giving birth that I felt this kind of resurgence of an independent identity. I was a mother, but I was an artist first. When I returned, I remember I was on the cover of a magazine, and I got sent a big stack of them. It was a beautiful feature in Dance Teacher. I remember my daughter had the stack and when people would come over, she would give them a magazine. That felt really special that she took pride in my experience.
Recently I worked on a project in British Columbia. Although she’s 11, we still have a bedtime routine, so I was explaining that I’d be away. She said she was really glad that I had these opportunities to perform and work abroad again. She was happy for me. I don’t feel like I succeed all the time at being a good mother, but there are these moments that you hang on to. In terms of the “good artist” part of your question. It is really hard. Before I was a mother, I’d get to rehearsal 15 minutes early and be prepared and we’d start right on time. *laughter* Then when Evie was a baby, I remember I was rehearsing in SoHo. I would have my dancers get there, but I wasn’t sleeping through the night. I couldn’t get through this rehearsal without coffee, so I’d stop to get coffee and then I’d be late. The project felt like a disaster.
One of the dancers dropped out at the last minute, so things were a little chaotic. Things didn’t quite go how I envisioned. I was so tired. We got this terrible review in The New York Times.It was very humbling because I realized you can’t do everything. Prior to having a kid, I had a side hustle. This doesn’t get talked about very much. It's almost taboo to talk about it in the dance world, but I had another job in residential real estate. So I was able to have a dance career and make money. I was able to work 24 hours a day, but when I had my kid I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take care of a baby, manage a dance career, and work in real estate. The real estate took a back seat. The good thing about that though, is my dance career has advanced considerably. My work has found focus. Beginning when I was pregnant, I felt like something clicked in me creatively in my dance career. Since 2011, my work has been very focused. Prior to that time, I was working a lot and we were doing shows, but I was in the routine of putting everything into a project, recovering, and starting again. Since 2011, my work has been on a unified aesthetic trajectory. Expanding the Loie Fuller idiom into ecological context. hat really began with a work that I started when I was pregnant. Since then all of it has really developed. I have a lot of things going on and it always seems like a struggle to manage it all, but all the work that I’m doing revolves around dance which has been helpful to advance my career. Now I’m back to arriving early for rehearsals and preparing. But I remember that I was not prepared for that total and utter exhaustion for like a year.
I also had this idea before I had my kid that you can be an artist and you could bring your baby to rehearsal and the kid would be part of your process. It was almost like this hippie thing. It was a lack of professionalism, thinking about it now. I used to have a regular rehearsal time at Karen Bernard’s Studio, I’d rehearse there every single day. Instead of taking class, I’d go there and do my own personal practice. I was there on 9/11. I was the first renter back in her studio, I had done aerial work so it was a way to practice that. It’s a little unusual, because a lot of dancers would take a ballet class, but I would go and do my own practice; whether I was working on a project or not. One thing I was very worried about, was thinking that this was how I maintained my body as a dance artist. How was I going to keep this going? When Evie was born I thought I could take her with me. So I took her, but then I’d have to breastfeed, since she’d be hungry Then it’d be like 20 minutes later, and I was thinking “Are you done yet?” So that didn’t really work. Then Karen’s daughter was living at home, so she babysat, but Evie cried the whole time. Then, you know, you’re carrying the stroller down the stairs and you’re trying to get there on the subway. . So this totally didn’t work! I ended up joining a gym near me, they have dance studios and an incredible facility. I said, no matter what I can get there at some point during the day. So that changed for me. I just rejoined after the pandemic. I also had two funny things. I had lined up two residencies that I did with an infant. I did a residency at Wilson College.
Anabella: I did my MFA at Wilson College!
Jody: I brought her, she was really little, maybe 3 months old. It was my first gig and I was staying on the top floor of this building. During class they hired some of the students to roll her around in her stroller. So the workshops went really well, but then I got food poisoning or a virus and I was up all night and then the next day I had to drive home. She had this explosive diarrhea in the car, this 4-hour drive. So I had to stop at a rest stop and her entire body was covered! I had to go to Hofstra University the next evening, because there was an audition for a piece we were setting. I remember working it out when we went there that they had a faculty room and I would pump there. The other residency that worked really well was at DeSales College and Robin Staff’s Silo Space.. The dancers stayed in one house, but there were these dogs so the infant couldn’t stay there. So we stayed on the campus. Timothy Cowart, whose wife is expecting triplets, had already had two kids, and he found me a babysitter. The babysitter was inexpensive and had like 8 kids of her own. She was amazing and took care of the baby the whole week! My baby was 6 months old, I had just given her her first solid food that week. I was working with my dancers all day and then we had rehearsals with the students at night and in between I was feeding her. It’s hard to remember all of this!
Anabella: The teenage years are coming!
Jody: What I love about 11 is that she’s still a kid. Childlike and at the same time she’s tall. It’s a funny age to see. If you look at her, you might think she’s more mature than she is, but she’s a kid! She’s cute, but also very perceptive and insightful, and a good person to hang out with.
Anabella: Our kids are our mirrors. How is/was the relationship with your mother? What did it mean for you to be a female in this world?
Jody: I remember once I was speaking with my neighbors and they said that even a fetus has ovaries and so when I was in my mother’s womb I had the ovary that became Evie. So I love this idea of the nesting doll. During the pandemic, we stayed with my mother for a while. I had the opportunity for Evie and my mom to spend a lot of time together, so we’re close.
I feel like we should have a chant. My mother is doing research now, she’s retired from her university job, but she’s been doing a lot of memoir writing of her childhood and sharing that with Evie and I; which is very interesting because she grew up in the 30’s. So hearing what it’s like to grow up during World War II and the great depression. My mother’s grandparents went back to Russia to help with the revolution, they were communist. So she’s writing about that, she never met her grandmother, but what her grandmother experienced during Stalin’s time is incredible. My mother’s been reconnecting with her ancestors and I’m learning about it through her. And I feel as women, in some cultures you know they have a song, so I feel we should have this matrilineal chant of women’s names. Something we all learn and then we just continue to add onto it, so we can all learn about our ancestors.
Anabella: That’s beautiful! It’s magical, that’s why the pandemic gave us so many unexpected things; you got to spend time with your mom and hear these stories. What are the things that you want to pass down to your daughter?
Jody: She said to me a few times that she imagines one day taking over Time Lapse Dance. So she’s thinking about my legacy and wanting to keep it alive. My mother has been very active in my career, she’s attended probably every single performance and she was on the board of my company when I first started. I’ve explained to Evie about the company and how boards work. I think when I let her try on the costumes, she can imagine herself dancing with the dancers and she’s interested in the other dancers. She’s not going that route, she’s not going to be a child dancer in the company, but she sort of still sees herself as involved in a way and supports it how she can. She offered to start a TikTok for the company, she’s very good at social media. Maybe she’ll be like an intern or something.
I sort of imagine her as a custodian, meaning I would grant her the rights to my work for the future so she can have a say and benefit from it. I see that in terms of my artistic legacy, it’s something she seems to be proud of. Although she doesn’t want to participate in the artistic content itself, she sees that she wants to be involved in helping to perpetuate it.
Anabella: Thank you so much for sharing all of these stories, this is why I wanted to do this project.
Jody: I love my daughter, but I’m looking forward to the freedom of an empty nest. I still have a lot of nesting. I feel like things have advanced in the last few years. My daughter was born in 2011 and I remember going to the first ever Movement Research group for parents. There were around 3 expecting mothers and maybe 1 person with a baby. The few times we met at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, I remember it took me an hour and a half by subway to get there; it was really nice to see the other parents, but it took the entire day. So I only went 2 or 3 times. That was basically the extent of involvement that I’ve had with other mothers in the dance world. I feel like there’s been very little acknowledgment or understanding, even with all of the emphasis on inclusivity and identity; I feel like there’s been very little acknowledgment of the burden of motherhood, parenthood but particularly motherhood, and the difficulties. It’s an identity question. I wasn’t prepared about how motherhood changes your whole identity in a much more profound way than I think fathers generally experience. Sort of having my identity being taken away as an individual was one of the hardest things to recover from in the process of parenting and I think one of the biggest struggles. It doesn’t get talked about enough in the dance community, because the dance community is so youth-focused it’s almost like becoming a parent is a signal to the end of your active participation in the dance world. You could be part of it as an “established artist”. We still have this sort of paradigm of this “emerging” or “mid-career” or “established” artist; if you have a kid you have to be like “mid-career”. Of course, these are all outdated and irrelevant, I just feel like this is important work for what you’re doing, because there needs to be more understanding and acknowledgment how parenting is not really still accepted as a normative practice. Especially in a field where so many women go into.
Anabella: Especially, now that we have technology everyone can stay home and we can do it on Zoom. You can have the laundry going, feeding, the kids can come on and off, you can mute yourself, etc. People keep saying that they want to come back to live events after the pandemic, meanwhile for a mother the online events were the best thing. It’s nice to have the option. What you’re saying is so important because not everyone knows the struggle. During the pandemic, something woke up in me; Working on my art is not enough, what about the community that we are creating for? We need to support each other, that is why I started “Listen to Your Mother”.
Jody: That’s amazing! My company thinks of it as multi-generational work, so everyone can come. It has this level of visual appeal that the children would understand and the meaning that elders would understand. There’s almost a stigma against making work that is family work. I think that comes from this very youthful place, where kids who are in their teens/twenties have to break out on their own. As the dance world and the avant-garde art were formulated by the youth, there hasn’t been a reassessment of a broader idea of culture that is community-oriented / multigenerational. Institutions that are extensively focused on experimental work are often biased against it.
Anabella: Maternity changed us, that’s very clear in the approach. Even when I do weird stuff in my performances and my work, I forget oh no my daughter’s friends are coming to see this. How am I going to explain to them what my piece is about? Having kids changes how you approach your work. The generosity, the openness, and the inclusivity.
Jody: I actually began to include a program for children to workshop, because of my daughter and her peer group. It’s interesting how that’s changed since she’s gotten older, but it’s become a habit. I’m so excited you’re doing this work. Thank you so much!
Choreographer-dancer Jody Sperling is the Founder/Artistic Director of Time Lapse Dance. She has created 45+ works and is the world’s leading exponent of the style of early modern dancer and performance technologist Loïe Fuller (1862-1928). Sperling has expanded Fuller’s genre into the 21st century, deploying it in the context of contemporary and environmental performance forms. In 2014 she participated in a polar science mission, as choreographer-in-residence aboard an icebreaker; a film of her dancing on sea ice won a Creative Climate Award. Following, Sperling has since developed a practice called ecokinetics that cultivates the relationship between the moving body and ecological systems while providing strategies for climate-engaged artmaking. Sperling earned a World Choreography Award nomination for her work on the Cesar-award winning Fuller biopic “The Dancer” (2016 Cannes Film Festival). She created new work and is a subject of a forthcoming Fuller documentary. Sperling and company have been in residence at dozens of colleges and toured throughout the US and internationally. She holds a BA from Wesleyan University in Dance and Italian, an MA in Performance Studies from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and an MFA in Dance from Montclair State University. Sperling has received commissions from Vermont Performance Lab/Marlboro College, The University of Wyoming through the NEA American Masterpieces Program, and the Streb Lab for Action Mechanics. Works have been featured in the repertory of The Netherlands’ Introdans ensemble and performed by Ice Theatre of New York.
Originally from Argentina, Anabella Lenzu is a dancer, choreographer, scholar & educator with over 30 years of experience working in Argentina, Chile, Italy, and the USA. Lenzu directs her own company, Anabella Lenzu/DanceDrama (ALDD), which since 2006 has presented 400 performances, created 15 choreographic works, and performed at 100 venues, presenting thought-provoking and historically conscious dance-theater in NYC. As a choreographer, she has been commissioned all over the world for opera, TV programs, theatre productions, and by many dance companies. She has produced and directed several award-winning short dance films and screened her work in over 200 festivals both nationally and internationally.